Headcrabs, Civil Protection, and Gus
by Andicat
Summary: Gus Debricko was a normal Black Mesa scientist until the resonance cascade. Then his life was turned upside down, and a chance for a new chance at life. I PLAN FOR THIS TO BE A VERY LONG FIC, STRETCHING FROM THE BLACK MESA INCIDENT TO THE END OF EP. 2
1. Chapter 1

Gus DeBricko ran his fingers through his medium-length brown hair. He wore a black button-up silk shirt and khaki pants. Over the shirt he wore a white lab coat with the Black Mesa symbol on it. _Just another day at work, _he thought as he set about his daily routine of cups of black coffee and boring assignments for thousands of employees whose names were impossible to memorize.

"Damn, I hate the administrator." He said under his breath. The administrator was the no-nonsense leader of the facility. Gus preferred bastard when no one was around or "Cat's Pajamas" when in presence of friends or one of the other personnel in the place. He wasn't a bad leader-just a strict and mysterious ruler.

"Hey, Gus." One of the security guards said nonchalantly. Gus looked up and saw Alexander, one of his favorite security guards. Alex looked the other way when Gus smacked the vending machines in just the right place so that it gave him free food, and Alex got small snippets and rumors of goings-on in the facility. It was sort of a mutual understanding, and had been happening for years. Both men knew that...things would happen to them if they were caught, so when anyone else was around they pretended to just be coworkers.

"Hey Alex. Got some more personnel requests for me?" Gus asked, noticing the large stack of paper in the man's gloved hand.

"Yup. Have fun!" The man said dastardly, and jogged away. Gus swore under his breath and kept meticulously filling out the forms. After a couple more black coffees and a LOT more forms, the desk jockey was beat. He got up from his desk, opened the door to his office, and walked out into the hall. He nodded hello to several other workers and made his way to the cafeteria for a snack.

As he walked up to the vending machine, the lights went out. At first, Gus just thought it was a momentary flicker, as any type of weather could pass overhead without them knowing, being underground, but then he remembered the facility was military-funded and most likely had backup-backup generators.

Suddenly, the room around him shook and he heard people yelling. Several balls of what looked like blue lightning filled the room, and people started screaming. In the distance he heard several distinct cracks-gunshots. Acting on instinct, the worker ran for cover behind what he thought was the lunch counter. He promptly head butted a vending machine.

As he was grasping his head in pain, the room suddenly became light, but the room was as chaotic as before. Turning around he saw a strange naked, fleshy creature with one eye shooting lightning bolts from it's fingertips. Gus ran for the door out of the cafeteria, fumbled with the knob, and pushed it open. A grisly sight awaited him.

Alex, the security guard, was slumped against the wall, lying in a pool of his own blood. On his head was a strange crab-like being, with a bloody "beak".

"Alex? Alex, this isn't funny! Come-come on, let's get out of he-here!" Gus said, his voice jittery.

In response, Alex-_or what used to be Alex_ let out a horrible scream and got up, accidentally kicking the gun towards Gus. Gus grabbed the 9MM and pointed it towards his best friend.

"M' sorry, A-Alex." His voice said, almost a whisper. Aiming through the iron sights, he aimed at the crab figure on his head and fired three times. The three loudest sounds he would ever hear struck the virgin air.

**CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.**

The alien crab flew from his head, hit a whitewashed wall, and hit the ground, leaving a trail of yellow alien blood and red human blood. The security guard's disfigured head displayed a final, distorted scream and his whole body slumped to the ground. On his back, the guard had a medium-sized knapsack that looked like it was sloppily packed with various items. Gingerly removing it and a bulletproof vest from his friend's body, he removed his bleached lab coat and slung them both over his shoulders. Gus walked over to the alien and fired twice more at the monstrosity. It twitched and Gus grabbed the top of it. Its squishy skin bunched up. Sliding the knapsack onto one shoulder, he unzipped a section and put the crab in. Making the sign of the cross, he stood up and decided to move on.


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi...not so loyal readers. Yeah, that's what i'm calling you. Every time you don't review this story, a puppy dies. Don't let the puppies die. This chapter is a teensy weensy bit longer than the previous one so, that should satisfy you Half-Life Trolls. So this is my first HL story, so if you go easy on me, thank you. ONCE AGAIN, PLEASE REVIEW. I CAN NOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH, actually I can, but I won't. Ok, thanks in advance for at least reading this.**

Gus opened the door to the next room. There was a couple labs on either side of the whitewashed hallway, but at the end there was a scientist slumped against the wall, seemingly dead. Gus didn't see anything on his head, like Alex, but that didn't mean he didn't edge nervously around the body like it had a parasitic disease. At the end of the hallway was an elevator shaft. Pressing the button, Gus prayed it would work.

It didn't.

Feeling a sharp pain run down his back, he spun around quickly and saw that one of the fleshy, naked, one-eyed creatures was shooting electricity from it's slimy tan-brown fingertips at him. Raising the handgun, which had never left his hand, he shot prematurely and put a bullet hole in the floor. The next shot hit its mark, as did three afterwords. As the murderous alien fell to the floor, the elevator made a _DING_ behind him.

Apparently it had worked after all. Gus stepped into it and tried to run a hand over the wound in his back. He wiped away a liquid, knowing what it was before he saw it. Fortunately, it was only one of the creature's claws that had pierced his back and the electricity had missed. As the elevator started his slow hum towards the top, he frowned at the music. Most people hated it, but he had a strange liking for it. It didn't fit in the situation he was in.

The stainless-steel door opened, revealing a seen of pure carnage. Corpses were strewn everywhere, with shell casings, weapons, and overturned equipment everywhere. Looking around, Gus managed to scavenge a few magazines from a few dead guards.

He hated this. Just twenty minutes ago, he had been filling out personnel forms peacefully at his desk. Now, he was taking ammunition from dead security guards and killing aliens that jumped him around every corner. At least he was cut out for work like this. He had been sure to keep in shape, and owned a couple guns himself, which were kept clean even though they saw regular use.

_That was on paper targets and clay birds_, Gus thought. While it was true he had no regrets killing things that were trying to kill him, he hated the fact he was ending lives.

His thoughts were ended by a groan from a corner of the room. In it he found a nearly-dead security guard clutching a revolver.

"Head...for the surface. T-take this...it'll help." He said, struggling for words but offering up the revolver. Gus nodded and took the weapon and set it on the floor. He looked back at the man to see his body limp on the floor, staring at the ceiling. He closed his eyes and took all the revolver ammunition he could find. He put the weapon in his backpack, accidentally rubbing up against the squishy headcrab he had put there earlier.

Zipping the backpack up and slinging it back over his shoulders and moving on. The only door he saw was the one he had came from, and this was the top floor of the elevator so he wasn't going back on it. Looking around, he did see an air vent in the corner of the room, almost untouched by the carnage except for a blood spatter on the side.

Walking up to it, he saw it was easily pulled out. Fitting his slender frame through it, Gus started crawling. At the end of the cramped tunnel he found a ladder going up, exactly what he was looking for. Climbing up it he followed the tunnel again until it came out into a stairwell.

Wiping his dusty hands on his pants, Gus started the climb only to hear a beeping behind him and a sharp pain in his left leg. Limping up the stairs, he tripped onto the landing, thankfully in a place where the gunfire couldn't hit him.

Gus tried to keep walking, but resorted to slumping his back against the bottom few stairs of the next flight. He saw a small pool of red liquid forming under his lower leg, and turned it over to see a bullet-sized hole in his pants. He rolled up the pant leg, grimacing when the material hit the hole, and saw blood gushing from the wound. Thank fully, the bullet had missed any bone and had gone straight through-really, all he had to worry about was pain and the fact he might bleed out.

Tearing part of his sleeve for a tourniquet, Gus frowned. What had hit him? It wasn't human, thankfully, because it would have came to finish the job, and plus, human's don't beep. Because of the noise, Gus decided it was a machine, but he didn't know besides that. He wasn't a scientist, just a paper pusher. As he tied the shirt around the wound, Gus let out a small yelp in pain. That had hurt. The blood slowly began to clot and Gus got up, trying to put a little weight on the injured leg. Grimacing in pain, he decided limping up the stairs would be a better idea.

As he slowly took the stairs one at a time, Gus chuckled and made a snide comment about how the day couldn't get much worse. How wrong he was.


End file.
